190 TJie Pytchley Hunt, Past and Present. 



had left Harrow that the spirit of the old ancestral love 

 of huntiDg began to move within him. 



The small pony^ the fourteen-hands cob, the depend- 

 able full-sized hunter J the three first rungs of the 

 hunting-ladder were all mounted in turn ; and then came 

 the reaching of the top round. Every man has his own 

 idiosyncrasies, hidden possibly from himself, but very 

 apparent to those able to see the beams of light as well 

 as the mote in their neighbour's eyes. Should the subject 

 of this memoir not have escaped the fate of every public 

 character — making enemies — his greatest opponent will 

 be loth to deny that Thoroughness, Duty, and Justice, 

 are the three principles by which he is governed in all 

 his actions. To no one living are the words jiatjustitiaf 

 mat coelum, more applicable. With him the best day's 

 hunting has ever had to give way to a duty, however 

 unpleasant, and easily to be shirked, and whatever he 

 takes up is carried out with all the completeness that 

 his strong and thoughtful mind enables him to bring to 

 bear upon it. 



The first of the above triplet of virtues was exemplified 

 on each of the occasions upon which he became a 

 " Master of Hounds,' ' by the thoroughness with which 

 he at once commenced various reforms in kennel and 

 stables, not the least being the improvement of the 

 hounds in every respect, and by the introduction of new 

 blood. The importation of the Duhallow pack from Lord 

 Doneraile's country, in 1874, did not prove altogether 

 satisfactory; but on assuming the Mastership in that 

 year, the hounds belonging to the " P.H." had reached 

 so low an ebb, that fresh blood from any quarter was an 

 object of the greatest importance. In the same spirit, 



